Reliving the Glory

It’s time for my Friday Fun post, in which I offer nothing more than perhaps an opportunity for some amusement.

All right, having done a fairly academic/literary Friday Fun post last week, I’ll do something completely different this week. Today, I invite you to share your greatest athletic accomplishment from your youth.

I was by no means a great athlete, but I do have a few memories of successes of which I am proud. My favorite though is tied to my participation at Wheaton College with the lacrosse club. As a club, we were student run and played against mostly club teams from the various University of Illinois or University of Wisconsin campuses within a few hours of Wheaton. There were also some club teams in Chicago that we played against, but they were usually much better than we were.

In the shortened fall season my sophomore or junior year, we went down to Illinois State one Saturday to play their club team. They were a fair distance away by car, so we had to leave early. When we got there, we warmed up and prepared for the game. Little did I know, it would be the most prolific scoring game of my lacrosse career. (I played ‘attack’ – which in lacrosse means I basically only played offense.)

The game started, and on one of the first possessions, I got the ball and used my one, really good offensive move – kind of a face dodge move where I would fake taking a shot from a long way out, slip past my defender and go to the goal. It worked. I got past my guy and got to the goal and scored.

That wasn’t unusual, as that move got me a lot of goals while I played for Wheaton. What was unusual, was that I beat my defender five more times with the same move. That plus one breakaway goal gave me seven total goals in that game, in which we beat Illinois State 10-6. I have always found it a little bit amusing that on that day I outscored the Illinois State lacrosse team single-handedly, and it is still my favorite sports memory.

The defender who kept falling for the same move had a bit of a rougher day, I’m afraid. His goalie started cursing him out as I kept getting past him, and a little later, when I juked him again and was headed to the goal, one of the other IU defensemen came charging through the crease determined to kill me, I think, and end my reign of terror. Only, I saw him coming, stepped to the side at the last minute, and he crushed the guy who was trying to defend me. They ended up carrying him off the field.

All in all, that guy had a pretty long day, but my day was just about perfect. If I remember correctly, I ended taking only 8 or 9 shots, but I managed to score on 7 of them. Far and away my biggest scoring day. I had my share of hat-tricks, and on occasion got as high as four goals, but I never before that or after it ever got close to seven again.

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One thought on “Reliving the Glory”

Congratulations on your game! Sounds fun.
I played soccer in a youth league. I wasn’t good at all until I was maybe 10. In fifth grade, I joined the middle school team and had the best coach in the world. The school was small and when I joined, there were three eighth graders on the team, five or six seventh, and a bunch of sixth and fifth graders. Three years later, in my seventh grade year, we won the championship. I love soccer, and got really good at it. I played defense so I didn’t score many goals but I saved several and, once I got the ball, few people could take it from me. I could juke around almost anyone.
I’m very proud of my soccer career. I still love to play soccer even though I don’t play on any teams anymore.